Thursday, April 26, 2012

Review: Torment by Lauren Kate, Book 2 of the Fallen Series

Luce has just escaped a battle between the forces of
Demons and Angels and has now been moved into hiding – even from her parents
and friends. She is now at Shoreditch, an exclusive school in California, but
also one with a secret – this is where Nephilim are sent to train, the children
of Angels and Demons.

Separated from Daniel who is pursuing his own agenda he won’t tell her about
(including a truce with their one time enemy, Cam), Luce is left to try and
assimilate into this new setting with her supernatural classmates, all the
while pursued and harried by enemies she knows nothing about (because no-one
bothers to tell her) with unknown motives (to her anyway).

But she also seeks a connection with the past lives Daniel
remembers but she has lost – through the use of the shadowy Announcers, she
fumbles her way to try and find some knowledge of who she was and who she and
Daniel were. And through that, she hopes to find exactly what their
relationship is now.

This book is called Torment and I am sorely tempted to
say it is named appropriately. I am so utterly frustrated by the way the book
progressed, the general lack of story and the behaviour of the characters

The last book was very long and very slow. We had an
awful lot of foreshadowing with Luce’s life in a reform school – it was mundane,
there were clues but it was primarily an introduction. As
I said in my last review, the book didn’t seem to start until the very
closing pages – that’s when we had angels, demons and grand epic plot line
actually started.

So I opened this book with a vague hope that we were now in the world of angels
and demons and the plot would follow along those lines. Instead I find that
Luce has been moved somewhere for her own safety. Another school. Yes, it’s a
school with a special class for Nephilim (people with Angelic/Demonic blood)
run by Angels and Demons but, ultimately, she’s in a school and we’re largely
back to square 1. I think Daniel and Cam are out there doing interesting things
– but Luce is at school, involved in a lot of school drama (making new friends,
making new enemies and meeting a cute boy) but not doing much more than playing
with the Announcers. All the desperate high school drama, a climax, then back
to school again. And in this school she has plenty of time to think – and think
she does. About Daniel and their “relationship” (sure, he remembers their past
lives of love, she doesn’t. She’s known him for a few weeks – and most of that
he was shunning her), about her relationship with her family and about her past
lives. Endless reams of thinking – but none of it going anywhere, just circling
monologues of angst.

Which brings me to the next element of this book I found
immensely frustrating – everyone is mushrooming Luce. No, that’s wrong – “mushrooming”
means keeping someone in the dark and feeding them shit. Luce doesn’t even get
shit. She is ordered by her oh-so-loving boyfriend to remain on campus like a
good girl. He doesn’t tell her why beyond “keep her safe” he refuses to fill
her in on the enemies, he refuses to explain why they have enemies and what
they want, he refuses to explain his truce with Cam, he refuses to explain what
the difference between angels and demons actually is, he refuses to explain why
he is the linchpin in the battle between Heaven and Hell, he refuses to explain
why he’s having trouble choosing, he refuses to explain why she matters, her
past lives, the beginning of their relationship – ANYTHING. She is given orders
and dropped, ignorant, into this new place and just expected to obey.

The thing is, 80% of Luce’s angst (and, therefore, 80% of
this book – because seriously, that’s all this book is, Luce endlessly angsting
about her relationship with Daniel and related issues) cold be addressed if
someone would talk to her. Or at very least if she could ask some questions and
make them stick. She asks a few, but she accepts the brush off. She has been moved
by near strangers to the other side of the country with zero contact with her
friends and family for reasons no-one will explain, with consequences no-one
will explain and she has to learn things no-one will explain. There is no
reason presented why Luce needs to be kept so ignorant and all it does it cause
further angst and misunderstanding on her part.

And this leads to the next thing that irritated me. Luce
doesn’t object to all this! Even when her new teachers put her under house
arrest she doesn’t start throwing things and demanding an explanation as to why
she is there and who these people are and what the hell gives them the right to
effectively hold her prisoner when no-one has explained a damn thing?! She asks
questions and gets irritated with Daniel when he orders her to obey but she
never pushes their refusal to answer.

But the truly irritating part of this is that she DOES
disobey (yay!) but in the Spunkiest of ways. While someone is actively hunting
her – she knows this because she’s seen it, let alone being told and the other
girl at school who looks like her has been victimised TWICE – she STILL decides
to wander off campus without telling anyone!

Daniel: it’s
dangerous out there, people want to kill you, you must stay on campus

Luce: Sure. Oh
a bus ticket off campus! Time for a trip! Oh, someone lured me off campus to
shoot me. Thanks for the rescue, Cam! Though I still think you’re evil and will
never actually examine your actions or ask questions about them.

Daniel: Look,
you were attacked, stay on campus!

Luce: Ok, I
understand. Hey a boat trip! Time for some sailing! Ah the sea air, the sun –
oh look, girl who looks like me was nearly drowned!

Daniel: Why
did you leave campus!? Stay on campus!!!!

Luce: FINE. Shelby,
wanna come on a road trip to see my past-life parents? I’m bored of wandering
all alone in these forests without telling anyone where I am

Daniel: STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!!!! While you were
wandering alone in the forest the girl who looked like you was kidnapped!

Luce: Oh my
god, they thought it was me! How awful, I must stay safe. Hey, Miles, Shelby, ANNOUNCER
TRIP TO VEGAS GUYS! Sure we have no idea how we’re getting home and we’re not
telling anyone that we’re teleporting out of state, but it should be fun!

Daniel, are you sure it’s a curse that kills Luce every
time she reaches the age of 17? She seems to have the survival instinct of a
suicidal lemming. Luce’s agency is constantly restricted and controlled by
Daniel and the Angels in general – it’s utterly out of line how little they
tell her. And if I were here I would have run to Stephen and Francesca’s office
and screamed bloody murder until someone told me something. Instead the only
agency she shows is some vague complaints and lots and lots of extremely
foolish, dangerous chance taking (like running off without telling people and
poking Announcers after being expressly told how dangerous they are).

All in all, after the introduction of the epic in the last
story we reverted back to another book that revolved around Luce’s emotional
state. Her uncertainties, her angst, her relationship woes, her ignorance and
her growing obsession with her past lives which was never really explained
adequately to me. The world itself and the story behind it is also not
explained either to Luce or the reader – we just know forces are out there and
stuff is happening with no real explanation. The whole angelic world’s
treatment of Luce is shockingly patronising and disrespectful, while Luce’s
actions are mind boggling in their foolishness and her internal monologue is mind
numbing in its dullness. We have some issues that could have been developed
(like Luce’s ability to channel the Announcers when fencing) which weren’t. And
far too many issues that weren’t needed (Shelby’s hostility/jealousy, Miles the
unnecessary love interest) but we had to spend untold pages reading about.